It has been over a year since the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the world. Many industries were hit by the pandemic and the financial services marketing industry is one of them. To combat the drop in business you have seen, Social Beat’s Head of Brand and Strategy, David Appasamy, is here detailing the best case practices for digital marketing that financial services companies should follow in India in 2021. The pandemic has not only hit industries but has also affected the mindset of consumers. Consumers have become more frugal due to the loss of lives, jobs and businesses. People have become more health-conscious and think twice before making a choice
Read: https://www.socialbeat.in/blog/digital-customer-journey-in-a-post-covid-world/
Setting context to digital marketing for financial services, David explains how the industry goes about it. For starters, financial services aren’t selling a one-time product. They are establishing a relationship with their customers that empowers them and gives them financial resilience over time. Another aspect that financial service companies cater to is offering services and products to each stage of the customer life cycle. Such products and services are sold to customers who may be starting their career or a couple that is just married (Double Income No Kids) or to a younger family or a mature family. While thinking of marketing for financial services, each segment of these types of customers can be considered as stages and every financial company has the ability to utilize these stages as an entry point for their brand.
The third thing to keep in mind when executing digital marketing for financial services is offering products laterally across every stage that was discussed earlier. When executing marketing of financial services, it is important to keep in mind the emerging needs of a growing family and cross-sell products or services that help the family build a surplus and provide for their future. The best financial services marketing plan to adopt to aid the customer move up the life cycle and provide lateral services is by meeting them at a point of need. This can be done digitally by meeting them where necessary and having one to one conversations with them, enabling them to understand the options they have and make a well-informed decision. To do this, it would be best to understand and adopt the full funnel marketing approach.
Read: https://www.socialbeat.in/blog/full-funnel-marketing-a-game-changer/
Now that you have a clear understanding of how digital marketing can be leveraged for the financial services industry, let’s dive into the best practices for digital marketing.
Practice empathy: While planning your strategy for the marketing of financial services, you will need to understand that people are hurting and in a different state of mind almost every day. In current conditions, people are fragile and are easily dissuaded when someone tries to hard sell to them. If you as a brand are practising empathy, make your customers and prospects know that you are reaching out to them because you are concerned about them and are there to help them make a better decision to be more financially resilient for tomorrow.
Focus on what matters to your customers: When you are executing the full funnel approach on digital to cater to your prospects and customers, the top of the funnel marketing activities must include products and services that are of top concern to them. The way to identify that is by doing online research or research with your own customers. You can also leverage a database of prospects or customers by sending out periodic surveys to understand what their key concerns are and how you, as a company can help them.
Cross-promote products to your customers via digital marketing: This is an important tip to keep in mind when marketing for financial services because your customers are already in the fold and it is your responsibility to push them higher up the lifecycle and solve their needs there. Doing outreach to your customers is another great way of pushing them up the lifecycle. You can reach out to those customers that are struggling and counsel them or offer them a moratorium in repayments or a bridge loan. There are many ways that you can solve your customer’s problem and if you do this effectively, you will win them as customers for life.
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